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Microsoft's Most Important Xbox One Exclusive So Far Might Be 'Xbox Fitness'

I haven’t been shy about saying that Microsoft'sMicrosoft's Xbox One needs some pretty serious selling points if it’s going to compete with the cheaper PS4. With all their policy reversals, Microsoft pretty much ended up with a very similar system to their rivals in the end. The biggest differences? The price, the peripheral that’s the cause of the price (Kinect), and each console’s exclusive games line-up.

I think Xbox may have something extremely attention grabbing on their hands in the form of the newly announced Xbox Fitness. It’s both an exclusive and proof that the Kinect may be worth its extra cost. Xbox Fitness has recruited four well-known trainers with even more well-known fitness programs to craft a workout experience specifically for the Xbox One and Kinect 2.0.

There’s Tracy Anderson from Metamorphosis, Jillian Michaels from Ripped in 30, Shaun T. from Insanity and Tony Horton from P90X. The “game,” if you want to call it that, will launch before this holiday, and will be free for Xbox Live Gold members for a year. After that, the app will require a subscription, but I’m not yet sure how much it will be.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a big home fitness guy that this really appeals to me. I’ve done both Insanity (well, half of it) and P90X (all of it!) in the past year, and programs like these are great for me when I’m working from home. This isn’t really the place to post progress pictures, but trust me, they work if you stick with it.

The obvious question is why someone like me would use this when I already have the necessary videos. Well, as seen from the demo below, the new Kinect is put to good use here, measuring heart rate, correcting your form, and I believe even counting reps. Now that is pretty cool, and it’s something that Sony'sSony's PS4, even with the new sold-separately camera, can’t fully replicate. And honestly, even with other Xbox One exclusives like Ryse, Killer Instinct, Dead Rising and Forza, I think this could potentially be more important than any of those in terms of what it offers that its competition doesn’t.

Gamifying fitness seems like a joke, but apps and other games have been doing this for a long time, and if Xbox Fitness can partner with programs that people have proven to use and like already, they could really have something here. A program that uses Kinect to keep track of all your vital stats, your improvement over time and even things like your heart rate with minimal effort from the user is pretty incredible, and very useful to someone like me.

I also have a hunch this could attract a lot of people who wouldn’t normally try one of these programs, and they might give it a shot to A) test out their new Kinect which they probably aren’t using for much else, and B) be able to see real time feedback about their progress. It sounds small, but gamifying anything, fitness especially, can be highly motivating.

Whether this does the opposite, and makes fitness enthusiasts buy a video game system, is probably a tougher road. The Xbox One still costs $500, and while the feedback is cool, most highly involved fitness people probably already are able to keep track of their own stats and vitals just fine, and won’t need to spend that much to do so.

Kinect has had dance and fitness games for years, which have always been the most useful titles for the device, but I think in the case of Xbox Fitness, they’ve finally evolved into something that people might actually seek out, or that avid gamers might try when they wouldn’t have otherwise. Having the app be free for a full year really helps with that, as it’s not a title they have to go out and buy.

My biggest problem is still the fact that I simply don’t have the living room space to properly use a Kinect, even the new version that allows you to be closer to it. I have perhaps four feet of space between the edge of my TV stand and the beginning of my couch, and I’ve done enough P90X to know something’s getting broken, either in my apartment or my body, if I try to do its involved moves in that little box. But hey, maybe in my next place.

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The console gamer market may be at best 250M users. Microsoft is definitely going to try to reach a much broader audience and technologies like the Kinect are going to enable them to do so in ways that the PS4 will not.

I could easily see these games/apps appealing to the fitness crowd, but I think that there will be more to it than just the game. It would be easy to setup not only classes through Skype, but have actual TV shows through the HDMI input where trainers who want to reach a large audience with a cable show not only has a scheduled show, but could collect fitness data and assist with a personal call to individuals to help them out in their routine. There’s a lot of potential in that kind of personalized fitness interactivity especially for those who are not able or willing to leave the home.

Hell, you could even have doctors or nurses check in with you through your personal exercise routine to make sure you are doing it safely and give tips or pointers. There’s a million ways that this will reach people that just can’t go to the gym.

As far as the $500 pricing goes, I think you will see Microsoft start to partner with cable companies to sell the Xbox One for a subsidized price. I could easily see them selling it for $99 down on a 2 year contract the way most of the cable and satellite companies do with DVRs. Its definitely an incentive to not cut the cord and may attract a few users back to cable. There’s at least a dozen reasons why cable companies and Microsoft would be willing to do this, but I’m sure everyone could come up with at least 5.

The fact that it requires a Gold membership won’t be an issue since I believe that this coming generation, most users will either join Xbox Live or Playstation Plus. Where this offering will lose people is when it starts charging a monthly subscription fee on top of Xbox Live. I believe that is slated for November 2014.

Who care about fitness this a game machine.Most kids eat pizza drink soda pop and play their games.Xbox connect a waste of money .Watch and see most xbox 360 owners will go for the cheaper Playstation 4.

I’m confused, you (the author) claim to be a fitness buff and have completed p90x and much of insanity but then you go on to say you don’t have room in your living room to do this. How, may I ask, did you manage to do it before? It was still something you put on the TV and did in front of the TV. Now that a kinect is involved, you have no room?

Bottom line, Xbox doesn’t belong in the gaming market, period. Their exclusives are sub par and the tactics microsoft employs to recruit developers is less than admirable. For example they “bribed” Rockstar with 6 million to ensure the first DLC content pack for GTA 4 was exclusive to Xbox. Or how about the Bungie buyout for Halo?

Xbox was a flop, and the only reason 360 managed to do well against the PS3 was Sony dropping the ball with price point and release date. (combined with Microsoft’s pocket book bribing companies)

Now those advantages are gone and we are seeing the #’s fall heavily in Sony’s favor. Sony has, and always will have vastly superior exclusives.

In regards to the Kinect, nobody cares. Motion gaming has no place in the hardcore gamer’s life. Leave that to the Wii children. Motion games are boring and dull. Fun for a night or two with friends on a party night, but other than that, a complete bore. The controller will always reign supreme, period.

Fairwell Microsoft. You had a decent run for 8 years, (even though the 360 was vastly inferior to Ps3), but your time is up. Buh bye!